Thursday 12 February 2015

Launch Day With A New Name

It's the day we've been working towards, looking forward to and also dreading, the day we announced our Steam launch of GameGuru, the new face of game creation and our new home for the next decade.  I could not sum it up better than the press released from Develop, linked here:

http://www.develop-online.net/news/gameguru-teaches-players-to-develop-3d-titles/0203041

The ball is now in motion, and if there was ever a day one, this would be it. The world has been informed and it's now our responsibility to deliver on every single grand design we ever hinted at over the last two years. The current build which is being hammered, ready for Steam Early Access, is focusing on getting the basics very solid and the basics covered. The process is quite ruthless, but not much has been dropped and in fact we've added quite a lot of content in a short amount of time in terms of stock assets you'll get out the box.

By now all pledgers will have received the email containing details of the goodies you will be getting as an honored member of our pledge based development. You get the full Steam product for free, extra keys for your friends and family, plus if you are Silver or Gold, some great DLC vouchers which will allow you to get new model packs we will be releasing on Steam. One of our strategies is to commission content on a rolling basis so you will get new assets all the time, in addition to any assets created by third parties through the built-in store.


Not only have we added medieval buildings and scenery objects but also characters and weapons too, so you'll have a great place to start your own fantasy game (and if you want ye' old' rocket launchers in 7th century England, that's fine too).

Deciding on a name for our game creator was extremely difficult, if not impossible, and I am also pretty sure not everyone will like it. The simple reasoning behind it is that we have to move beyond FPS and the 'shooter only' constraints of the old title. Within the next few years we'll have expanded the product to include third person, driving, flying, deep diving, space adventures and everything in between. For this we need a brand name that is simple to remember that can over-arch all the genre's we plan to support, and speaking personally, I am a little sad to see the old name go, but our future is as much about Third Person and Adventures as it is about First Person and Shooting, and we're making a bold statement to the universe that this is what we want and we're going to do it.

Of course there is no rest for the weary, and I must dive right back into the code and continue the last of the tweaks before some seriously intense testing next week ready for the countdown to the actual Steam launch.  I hope the new pledger installer works for everyone, but don't worry if you get the occasional issue, chances are we've already fixed it for the Steam build, and rest assured our internal alpha team will be giving the Steam pre-build a blast before it goes live.

More than my usual two sentences, but no ordinary day you will agree. Might post a little more on Friday but for the next two weeks there will not be much more than 'tested the product today, it was better'. Standard stuff, but absolutely essential for a successful and trouble free launch. If anyone is attending GDC I will be there for all five days, on the GDC show floor for four of them and doing my fair share of Guinness tasting throughout. As always, you are welcome to track me down and join me for a few swifties, always a good time at GDC!  I will post my schedule and locations closer the time :)

And finally, as I cannot say it enough, a huge thanks to the entire community who have helped us get this far, and I hope you will join us on our continuing mission to explore strange new genre's, to seek out content and new model packs, to go boldly where no game maker has gone....before.

FOR THOSE WHO DID NOT GET THE EMAIL (YET), HERE IS THE TEXT SENT TO ALL PLEDGERS OF THE PROJECT:

Welcome to FPS Creator Reloaded Version 1.01

Today we are releasing V1.01 of FPS Creator Reloaded. You will find this new build in the My Products section of The Game Creators website;
http://www.thegamecreators.com/?m=my_products

With this release we’d like to tell you our news!

Announcing GameGuru
With the technology developed to date we are launching a brand new game creation tool called GameGuru - an easy to use game maker that allows anyone to make, share and sell any kind of game on their PC. You can see it listed here in the Steam coming soon list;http://store.steampowered.com/app/266310/

Heading to Steam
From 2nd March we’ll be distributing GameGuru exclusively through Steam as an Early Access title. The main reasons for this are:
* The multiplayer code is built on the Steam networking system
* GameGuru will be much easier to manage through Steam – for example, the taking advantage of the Steam Workshop makes sharing and playing multiplayer levels much easier
* A single build means single focus, better for everyone
* We’ll widen our customer base which in turn will strengthen the community and allow us to bring you more features
* The Game Creators will be able to help you publish the best games made in GameGuru onto Steam

Thank You to our FPS Creator Reloaded pledgers!
Your support has helped us complete the project and we are very grateful for your backing.
On launch day we will be sending you all a set of Steam keys based on the pledge level you made:

* Gold: 5 GameGuru Steam Keys + 4 Model Pack DLCs due in 2015 (total value over $120)
* Silver: 4 GameGuru Steam Keys + 2 Model Pack DLCs due in 2015 (total value over $90)
* Bronze: 2 GameGuru Steam Keys + 1 Model Pack DLC (total value over $39)

You’ll be free to share your Steam keys with friends and family and then play against each other in your own multiplayer maps!

GameGuru is now our main game making project here at The Game Creators and we have lots of developments planned for 2015 and beyond - you will get lifetime updates for Free :-)

One Steam Price
Our aim is to make GameGuru a mass market product and as such it will have a price that appeals to the Steam community - $19.99. 
Plus GameGuru is royalty free so if you create the next Skyrim or COD the revenue you generate is all yours!
All the original FPS Creator Reloaded model packs will be merged into the main Steam product. This means anyone who buys GameGuru will receive:

* GameGuru
* Modern Day Model Pack
* Horror Model Pack
* Zombies Model Pack
* Vegetation Plus Pack
* The ability to save their single player games as standalone exes

We’re also working on some new fantasy and cartoon models that will be part of GameGuru. The benefit of adding all the media into the core means that users can make multiplayer levels and easily link up with friends and only have to send their map file before a multiplayer session begins.

Over the coming months and years we plan to add many new features so our community can effortlessly design the games of their dreams.

We hope you enjoy GameGuru and as always please keep sending us your feedback and suggestions.



37 comments:

  1. Personally, I do feel the name is a bit cheap and doesn't respect its legacy (fitting dark into the title would have been a wonderful throwback), nor does it match up that well to its competitors, but it is however much better than FPSCreator.

    I'm glad the people at TGC have seen sense. This should have been the goal at the very beginning. I just hope the product can recover and sore into new heights. A lot of that will be down to ease of use, flexibility and capability. Give us a new Unity. not a new 3D Game Maker. This product needs to feel more like game creation and less like modding.

    But seriously, one area you need to get nailed down, and fast, is graphical fidelity. It's just not up to scratch, especially when Unity is going into its fifth iteration with its shiny new Global Illumination system, and Unreal Engine 4 is already being used. GameGuru is generations behind.

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    2. you can make your game in unity and pay the 1.5k needed for it.. or you can go for gamegur at 5% of the price...
      Note: this engine DOES not target Tripple A develpors it targets hobbiests and now Indie. Both of which don't need very high graphics.

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    3. Unity is entirely free to use. It's even easy to use. The free version has its limits, but provides enough to create a credible game. :)

      It doesn't matter what this engine targets. The fact is, Unity alone has 45% of the market share and is ever growing. GameGuru is going to have a hard time if it doesn't think, or even want to compete with that. As far as I am concerned, it doesn't really have a choice. No one is going to take it seriously if it doesn't take itself seriously.

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    4. I don't mind having Unity and UE4 in the same marketplace, always good to have a little friendly competition. For clarity to other readers, I am taking 'EASY' game creation VERY seriously. I will leave cross-platform and high-end targets to the present forerunners, no sense trying to beat Olympic runners in your wellies! Know your enemy, and know yourself, and you will always be victorious...

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    5. Just want to say that I didn't ever presume otherwise. I was just explaining that to write off advanced, professional and flexible functionality that other engines have on the notion that this is software for indie, hobby creation (which Unity itself already is...), GameGuru wouldn't be taking itself very seriously. Like I said, we don't want another "The 3D Gamemaker", and to be quite honest, nor another FPSCreator, which I think we can all agree that despite its ease of use, wasn't all that simple (especially that god-awful state based scripting language which I hope you take no offence to...) or very flexible most of the time.

      I'm sure you have the project's best interests in mind, and I only wish you luck and success in realizing it. :)

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  2. Lee, I haven't received any email. Please resend. Thanks.

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    1. I have forwarded your issue to Rick who handles the email bombardment :)

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  3. "By now all pledgers will have received the email containing details of the goodies you will be getting as an honored member of our pledge based development. You get the full Steam product for free, extra keys for your friends and family, plus if you are Silver or Gold, some great DLC vouchers which will allow you to get new model packs we will be releasing on Steam."

    I have received no email about any of that.

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  4. Anyone else having problems downloading or is it just me?

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  5. Lee hate to keep beating the dead horse, but any updates on Zombies?

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    1. Beat away :) They have been integrated into the Steam build along with a small and creepy game level to show them off in. A good reason to get into Steam if you're not already encamped there! Let me know if you want the Zombies and absolutely refuse to use Steam, I am guessing no-one but it's worth asking.

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    2. That's great news, one more thing to look forward to at Launch. Let me know the next time your in San Fran, would like to buy you a pint or 3.

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  6. I have copied the text of the email to the blog post just in case your spam filter ate the announcement (easily done these days). Anyone experiencing download issues be aware there are probably over a thousand users trying to download a 300MB file from the same modest server at the same time. It may take a few attempts :)

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    1. Thanks Lee I'll just keep clicking "reload" like when I first got Facebook and was waiting for a girl to message me back. Yes I was/am desperate.

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  7. "Anyone else having problems downloading or is it just me?"

    What download?

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  8. thanks for sorting the transparency. i would like to know that we can seperate from steam if we want. i can handle certain aspects but i dont want to be tied to it. great for commercial. but i like the idea of none reliant and able to launch without it. i am on steam but i sometimes stay in middle of nowhere with no connections or signal. and with steam you have to initially start then elect to go offline. if there is no signal in the first place you are screwed, this is my issue with steam. you have to sign in to play a game. is there a way around that

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    1. You can create a shortcut directly to the GameGuru.exe in the SteamApps folder from your desktop, you don't need to be on-line unless you want to access the on-line store or play multi-player ;)

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    2. thanks for that. i have a problem, my models and old maps work but my own models wont pick up on the editor, the mouse pointer does not read them anymore so in other words i cant erase once down or move them. they are scaled vie fpe mostly. but my houses are having the same issue. i tried with the importer and in f9 mode but same issue. am i being a nonce?

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  9. I can't download it: error: "No data received" Server overloaded?

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  10. Just a couple of words: you did it Lee !!!!! :-)
    Congratulations and envy to your patience and hard working skills.
    You're THE constant gardener ;-) (ahem not the one from the book)

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  11. Nice new version. :)
    Can't wait to play with the zombies. Are there any plans about a file encryption for the standalone game? Btw. The models from the screenshot look great, I hope they will be available soon.

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  12. You're right that not everyone will like the name. I for one would have GREATLY preferred Reloaded. No FPSC, just Reloaded. I feel like GameGuru is rather generic and nondescript. However, it MAY appeal more and spread better on the web than Reloaded. It is for that reason that name is slowly (VERY slowly, mind) growing on me. I've always hated the word guru. Not sure why, just have, and so I was instantly worried by the name change when I found out about it. Still, what's done is done... 'spose I'd better get used to it...

    Anyway, congrats on the latest version. I have yet to fully test it, but I've downloaded it through Steam and will give it a bit of a testing in a few minutes. I'm hoping for, but not really expecting, decent performance. I haven't played with Reloaded for months and last time I touched it the performance was rather horrid.

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    1. I must say, however: +1 to your graphics design artist. The new logo is very good! Distinctive, strong and bold, and informative all at the same time.

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    2. *facepalm* Oops, I'm an alpha tester - maybe it's not available to the rest of you yet...? I was under the impression everyone had Steam keys already. Lee, if I've said too much feel free to edit my comment.

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  13. Still trying to download,not good.

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    1. Managed to download,good.Can run everything except the new escape level,freezes on creating ai obstacals.

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  14. no email received, and can't be able to download!

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  15. Email contents copied above. For download advice, email rick@thegamecreators.com

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    1. Thank you mr. Lee, was able to download at last, used a download accelerator to resume the many disconnection from download server... but i get my copy at last :D thank you again

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